Di Martile Marta, Garzoli Stefania, Ragno Rino, Del Bufalo Donatella
Preclinical Models and New Therapeutic Agents Unit, IRCCS Regina Elena National Cancer Institute, Via Elio Chianesi 53, 00144 Rome, Italy.
Department of Chemistry and Technologies of Drugs, Sapienza University, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy.
Cancers (Basel). 2020 Sep 16;12(9):2650. doi: 10.3390/cancers12092650.
The last two decades have seen the development of effective therapies, which have saved the lives of a large number of melanoma patients. However, therapeutic options are still limited for patients without BRAF mutations or in relapse from current treatments, and severe side effects often occur during therapy. Thus, additional insights to improve treatment efficacy with the aim to decrease the likelihood of chemoresistance, as well as reducing side effects of current therapies, are required. Natural products offer great opportunities for the discovery of antineoplastic drugs, and still represent a useful source of novel molecules. Among them, essential oils, representing the volatile fraction of aromatic plants, are always being actively investigated by several research groups and show promising biological activities for their use as complementary or alternative medicine for several diseases, including cancer. In this review, we focused on studies reporting the mechanism through which essential oils exert antitumor action in preclinical wild type or mutant BRAF melanoma models. We also discussed the latest use of essential oils in improving cancer patients' quality of life. As evidenced by the many studies listed in this review, through their effect on apoptosis and tumor progression-associated properties, essential oils can therefore be considered as potential natural pharmaceutical resources for cancer management.
在过去二十年中，有效的治疗方法得到了发展，挽救了大量黑色素瘤患者的生命。然而，对于没有BRAF突变的患者或当前治疗复发的患者，治疗选择仍然有限，并且治疗期间经常会出现严重的副作用。因此，需要更多的见解来提高治疗效果，以降低化疗耐药的可能性，并减少当前治疗的副作用。天然产物为抗肿瘤药物的发现提供了巨大的机会，并且仍然是新型分子的有用来源。其中，精油代表芳香植物的挥发性成分，一直受到多个研究小组的积极研究，并显示出作为包括癌症在内的多种疾病的补充或替代药物具有有前景的生物活性。在这篇综述中，我们重点关注了报道精油在临床前野生型或突变型BRAF黑色素瘤模型中发挥抗肿瘤作用机制的研究。我们还讨论了精油在改善癌症患者生活质量方面的最新应用。正如本综述中列出的许多研究所证明的那样，通过其对细胞凋亡和肿瘤进展相关特性的影响，精油因此可被视为癌症管理的潜在天然药物资源。
